Analysis of experimental nucleation data for silver and SiO using scaled nucleation theory

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Abstract
The experimental vapor phase nucleation data of Nuth et al., for silver [J. A. Nuth, K. A. Donnelly, B. Donn, and L. U. Lilleleht, J. Chem. Phys. 77, 2639 (1982)] and SiO [J. A. Nuth and B. Donn, J. Chem. Phys. 85, 1116 (1986)] are reanalyzed using a scaled model for homogeneous nucleation [B. N. Hale, Phys. Rev. A 33, 4156 (1986)]. The approximation is made that the vapor pressure at the nucleation site is not diminished significantly from that at the source (crucible). It is found that the data for ln S have a temperature dependence consistent with the scaled theory ln S≊ΓΩ3/2 [Tc/T−1]3/2, and predict critical temperatures 3800±200 K for silver and 3700±200 K for SiO. One can also extract an effective excess surface entropy per atom Ω=2.1±0.1 and an effective surface tension σ≊1500−0.45T ergs/cm2 for the small silver clusters (assuming a range of nucleation rates from 105 to 1011 cm−3 s−1). The corresponding values for SiO are Ω≊1.7±0.1 and σ≊820−0.22T ergs/cm2 (assuming a range of nucleation rates from 109 to 1012 cm−3 s−1).